Messages - nealric

I strongly suspect you would make more as an accountant than as a lawyer coming from the types of schools you describe. Don't be surprised to see people working for $15 an hour without benefits after CUNY. Some will move up, others will not.

You should also retake the LSAT if you have only taken it once. There is really no reason not to - it can only help your case.

You have next to no chance unless you are a URM. Sorry, but that's the truth. LSAT is just too low. Everyone has a strong PS and great LOR's. At most, those are tiebreakers if you are right on the bubble.

Keep in mind that it is actually harder to get into GW via early decision because admission comes with a full-ride scholarship. You would something like a 167 to have a shot.

It's a nice soft factor, but law schools are mostly a numbers game. Your GPA and LSAT need to be up to par for the school- nothing short of a Rhodes scholarship or a best selling novel is going to significantly change that.

HOw were your job prospects coming out of Georgetown? With my numbers, it seems to be the one school I am pretty sure about acceptance to in the T-14.

I'm doing NYC biglaw through the standard on-campus interview route. I was ~top 1/3 after 1L year (though one bad grade tanked an otherwise better record than that). Most of my friends have something good lined up, and I know people working in DC and Boston (nobody in Philly, but I don't know anybody who wanted to work there). Fair warning though, there were certainly a few people who got shut out in the job front and are pretty bitter about it. No idea what their grades were like though.

I think the calculus is different with T14 vs T50 as opposed to T50 vs. third tier- assuming you have some desire to work in biglaw.

T14 gives you a decent shot at biglaw, where salaries will be high enough to repay those loans quickly, and will quickly eclipse the cost difference in education. A lower T1 won't make biglaw a much better possibility than a Tier 3. Once you get out of the biglaw hiring model, school rankings mean less and less, and regional ties mean more and more.

Also, watch out for scholarship conditions. Many, if not most, 3rd Tier schools give scholarships attach onerous conditions to them. Getting a 3.0 might not sound bad at all when you are used to undergrad grading, but it could require top 1/3 grades if the school curves to a 2.7. There is a 2/3 chance you will not get that scholarship the next two years.